Now Is The Start
by ArentYouSophiaLoren-8887
Summary: After the vigil for Cam, Dallas goes home with Fiona, and the two of them work through a way to heal. ONESHOT.


**Author's Note: Not a planned story, just something that came to me while watching the promo for "Karma Police" mixed with some leftover ideas from "Bittersweet Symphony".**

**I will be updating "Starling" soon, but I needed a break. Things have been really stressful lately and for a while I could barely get out of bed, or eat, or make myself go to work. Because of that, I needed time off from writing such a heavy story. For a while I didn't feel like I could pull out of it, but things are finally starting to look up, and I'm trying to take better care of myself now. **

**Twitter: AlbatrossTam14 (protected tweets)**

**Tumblr: welldeservedobscurity**

**I don't own Degrassi.**

**I.**

There's a spill of gasoline in the parking lot of Burger Barnyard. It ripples like a fallen bit of rainbow on the cracked asphalt, shimmering harmlessly, but Dallas knows all it would take is one little spark to ignite and burn everything down to smoke and ruin.

He stares at the burger in his hands. It smells like grease and heaven, but he sets it down in his lap, letting it drool mayo and lettuce on the legs of his sweatpants.

In the front seat, Imogen is fiddling with a radio dial and Fiona is taking a bite of her French fries. Dallas watches as Imogen reaches over to stop her, then ends up taking her fingers, just holding them for a moment, and the two of them share a tiny smile over the gear shift.

Then Imogen catches his eyes in the rearview, watching the two of them, and pulls away quickly.

Fiona takes a sip of her soda, peering at him in the mirror. "Everything good?"

He shrugs. The food didn't taste much like anything. Like the beers he tossed back on the rooftop, they just feel like dust in his mouth. Like he's eating handfuls of ashes.

Plus, he noticed when he took a bite that his burger has onions on it. He asked for no onions. Thinks he did, anyway.

There's some stupid song on the radio. Kids falling in love, and then if one of them leaves, the other will die. Idiotic. And it sounds so happy and silly, singing about broken hearts, dying.

He stares out the window. The parking lot is filled with kids about his age, just getting out of school, ordering from the drive-thru and sitting on the benches outside. It's the first decent spring day they've had in a while, warm enough to do that. The happy death song is still playing on the radio and kids are laughing and throwing tater tots at each other and his burger has onions on it and he didn't ask for onions, and the sun is out and people are laughing and growing up and nothing's changed at all.

He must have made a noise he isn't aware of, because Imogen turns around, and her face clouds over into something that might be worry until she remembers she doesn't like him. But Fiona does look worried, and she reaches back, stopping just short of touching his knee.

"Let's go back to my place," she tells Imogen. "Will Natalie let you stay out for a few more hours?"

Dallas has no idea who Natalie is and doesn't care, but Imogen nods, and to his relief, they're pulling out of the parking lot.

**II.**

By the time they get back to Fiona's loft, her mom has called twice, and whoever Natalie is has been texting Imogen nonstop. Dallas's mom hasn't called, but she probably already knows.

"Still," Fiona tells him, "you should probably call her. I bet she's worried. She'd probably be happy to hear from you."

He shrugs. He doesn't want to, isn't sure she would be able to handle it. But mostly because the idea of reaching into his pocket for his phone feels too exhausting.

Dallas slumps on a couch that looks way too expensive for him to be sitting on. He won't call her now. No questions, no answers, no tears this way.

"You want anything to drink?" Fiona asks.

He tries to pull his face into a grin. "You got any whiskey?"

She and Imogen exchange looks.

"How about some coffee?" she says, nodding to Imogen. "I could use some."

"I'll make a pot," Imogen replies.

Dallas can peek into the kitchen from his spot on the couch. It's filled with expensive-looking items he has no idea the names of or what they do, but he sees in the corner a small white Mr. Coffee machine. It's funny, how small and insignificant it looks in that cold, gleaming kitchen.

He closes his eyes, rubbing the bridge of his nose. His head feels so heavy, too heavy, so he lays back down on the couch. The ceiling above him is covered with a large piece of artwork made up of several mirrors overlapping each other. When he looks into them, he sees a dozen of his own broken reflections cut across the sparkling, jagged edges of the glass.

He covers his eyes against his destroyed reflection, wishing he could shatter them.

A tap on his shoulder, and Fiona holds out a steaming cup of coffee.

"It'll help the headache," she says.

"How'd you know I have a headache?" he murmurs, taking a sip. It's hot, and burns his tongue like hell. But it tastes the same as the burger, like he's swallowing ash.

Something flickers in Fiona's eyes, like a window shutter.

"If I know anything," she says, "it's how wicked hangovers can be."

"You been drunk before?" He never figured her the type. Too…princessy.

Fiona's eyes do that weird shutter thing again. Like they're bricking something up behind them.

"Something like that," she says.

Before he can ask her what she means, Imogen calls from the kitchen.

"You have anything here besides hummus and a jar of peanut butter?"

"Drew kept a bunch of junk food in the cabinet above the washer," Fiona replies. "I'll check there."

Dallas lays back down on the couch, covering his face with his hands. His forehead is throbbing, and when he closes his eyes, he sees explosions of color, dazzling and dissolving in bursts and slashes. Like an entire galaxy, unraveling and coming to pieces all around him.

**III.**

He jerks awake, unsure of how long he's been asleep. When he sits up, his head still aches, and his mouth feels dry as cotton. He hears water running from the bathroom, the pound of the shower behind the closed door.

Imogen is standing at the stove, stirring the contents of a small pot. He gets up and peeks over her shoulder, startling her.

"Sorry," he says, as she whirls around and brandishes a spoon dripping with red sauce at him. "Didn't mean to scare you."

Imogen hesitates a moment before saying, "Just not used to hockey players sneaking up on me in the kitchen."

She turns back to the stove.

After a moment, he asks, "what're you making?"

She doesn't look at him. "Spaghettios. It's all I could find. Fiona usually orders out."

She pauses a moment, spoon poised over the pot, then adds, "I put some mushrooms in it. And some cinnamon. Thought it might help the flavor. Hope you don't mind."

Dallas shrugs. "I'm really not hungry."

Silence again, awkward and clumsy. He leans against the counter, watching her stir. When she realizes he's watching, he sees her shoulder tense, her eyes rooted to the stovetop.

"You cook a lot?" he asks, when the silence becomes unbearable.

Imogen gives him the briefest of glances.

"My mom doesn't cook," she says. "And she's usually not home for dinner. I got bored of eating the same take-out every night and decided to experiment. She never eats anything I make, anyway. Natalie's food is too bland."

"You call your mom Natalie?"

Imogen stops for a moment, then gives the bowl an extra-hard stir. She doesn't look at him.

There's still some coffee left in the pot. Dallas pours himself another cup, even though he still can't taste it. He looks out the window, surprised to see the sun's still shining. It feels like forever ago that he stood at the candlelight vigil, on the rooftop, in the guidance counselor's office. Feels like an even a longer forever that it was actually an ordinary day. It's too impossible now, to remember that this morning, nothing was changed.

He makes himself blink, remember to breathe.

"You want some?" he asks her, gesturing to the leftover coffee.

Imogen shrugs one shoulder at him. "No thanks."

After a beat, she adds, "I've had so much coffee today, I feel like I'll vibrate into another dimension."

As soon as she says that, she bites her lip, and her jaw clenches around the words like she regrets them. She goes back to stirring, turning slightly away from him.

He leans against the countertop and looks out the patio window, at the banners of sunlight still striping the horizon.

"Not me," he says. "I feel like I could sleep forever."

The words hit him like a sucker-punch, almost knocking him over. His stomach lurches as a cold sweat roils over him, and he grips the countertop hard, feeling sick.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Imogen stiffen, her hand freezing in mid-air and the spoon dripping tomato sauce over the stove.

After a beat, she takes a deep breath. Takes her finger, swipes it over the spoon, puts her finger on her tongue.

"I don't think I used too much cinnamon," she says. "That's good. A little cinnamon goes a long way. It's something I learned a few times."

She goes back to stirring, and he watches the sky.

**IV.**

Imogen's mom eventually makes her go. She was supposed to come straight home after school. Imogen rolls her eyes and says she's already in trouble, and might want to go home before Natalie calls the cops. She kisses Fiona goodbye – looking away from Dallas after they break apart – and jerks her head in his direction, as close as he gets to a goodbye, before she leaves.

Fiona's mom calls again, and she spends almost forty-five minutes on the phone with her, sitting in her bedroom as he flips through the channels on her TV. He skips over the news and billions of detective dramas, and finally stops on an episode of _That 70s Show_. But when he finds himself laughing at a joke he feels dirty, and the slow burn of shame starts crawling through him again. Feeling like shit, he clicks off the TV and throws the remote on the ground so hard the back comes off and the batteries pop out.

When Fiona finally hangs up on her mom, she comes over and takes a seat beside him on the couch.

"Your mom must be pretty freaked," Dallas says.

"She kept trying to keep me on the phone," Fiona says. "I think she just needed to hear my voice. And my brother wanted to talk to me, too."

He raises his eyebrows. "I didn't know you had a brother."

"Twin, actually."

"Where is he?"

Fiona picks up the remote, putting the batteries back in. "Yale."

"If you guys are twins, why's he already at university?"

Fiona re-snaps the back panel on. "I got held back a year. Lost some credits." She sighs. "My family pulled me out of Degrassi so I could go to this fancy private school in New York. It didn't work out, so I came back here. Came up short on my marks, and here I am."

Dallas watches her turn the remote over in her hands.

"What about you?" she says, looking up at him. "Did you call your family yet?"

He shrugs. "Not really planning on it. Don't wanna worry them."

"They're probably already worried," Fiona says. "Hearing from you would probably help."

"Look," he says sharply, "I don't feel like dealing with them right now, okay?"

Fiona looks at him, then looks back down, tossing the remote between her hands.

"You hungry?" she asks after a beat.

He shakes his head, wishing he hadn't yelled at her. Then again, he figures, that's what he does best, isn't it. Always just shouting his big mouth off, hurting people for no reason, never knowing when to back off and just shut the hell up.

He clenches his teeth, words shaped like bullets in his jaw.

Fiona comes back with a bowl of Imogen's Spaghettios, curling on the opposite couch.

"I love these," she says. "They're my favorite food."

He has to raise his eyebrows at that. "Seriously?"

She nods. "I was never allowed to eat this kind of stuff when I was little. Drew used to make it all the time. I loved it. I was eating real food, for once."

A smile peels across his mouth, but he holds it back. "Most people probably wouldn't consider that stuff 'real food'."

Fiona gives him a small smile. "Well, real-people food anyway. I don't think most people don't eat _foir gras_ and _moules mariniere_ when they're kids."

His mouth fights a smirk. "I don't think so. And it sounds disgusting."

Fiona grins, and then her phone vibrates. When she looks at the message, she frowns.

"What's wrong?" he asks, stomach swooping. He's almost afraid to know. What else could go wrong today?

Fiona keeps looking at the message, her brow furrowed. "It's Marisol. She's wondering if we should reschedule Spirit Week."

"Seriously?" He can't imagine anything worse. Who would want to play ultimate Frisbee and flag football when they knew Cam was dead? How could anyone want to do anything, knowing that? How could they make themselves move, walk, talk, never mind enjoy something as pointless as field games?

Fiona sighs. "I don't know." She looks up at him and shrugs. "It may not be the worst idea, you know?"

He snorts. "Sounds like a shitty one."

"It might help," she says quietly. "Help people move on, bring the school together again."

"It's letting people have fun and laugh when they know he's dead," Dallas snaps. "It's not moving on, it's showing Cam we don't care he did it."

Fiona puts her phone down on the ottoman. She looks at him carefully, like she's weighing every word.

"But Cam's gone," she says quietly. "We're still here. We have to start our lives again."

He looks away, grinding his teeth so hard his jaw hurts. _Why the hell should we?_

He looks out the window. It's a pretty night; like it has_ any_ right to be. The sun has faded to a sky of soft purple clouds and a bright, round moon that butts up against the windowsill like it wants inside, wanting to bathe them in a warm silver glow like arms.

Fiona looks down at her phone and sighs.

"I won't give her an answer yet," she tells him. "Okay?"

He jerks a shoulder in her direction.

"You sure you're not holding out on me with the whiskey?" he says after a beat.

Fiona's mouth twitches. "There isn't any alcohol in the house."

He shakes his head. "Seriously? A place like this with no parents, and you're totally dry?"

Fiona looks at him, then down at the remote still turning in her hands, then back at him, like she's trying to decide if this is thin ice she wants to test.

"There can't be any," she says finally. "I'm an alcoholic."

When he stares at her in disbelief, she shifts in her chair. "Part of the reason I failed so many classes last year was because I went to rehab in the middle of it. Adam helped me go, actually. We were sort of dating at the time…"

On an ordinary day, that would be the most surprising thing he heard. He almost says, "_Told you,_ you were too pretty to be a lesbian" before pulling it back. _Just _barely.

He remembers when he met her, and how she totally shut him down. She was immune to everything he had to winning over girls, and blew him off every chance he had. Plus, he and Adam have talked about girls before, but he's never mentioned Fiona; Dallas doesn't even remember hearing about Adam ever having a girlfriend other than Becky Baker. And he would definitely remember if Adam said he hooked up with someone as hot as Fiona. It makes him wonder what happened to them, or if this had anything to do when them breaking up.

_Then again, _he thinks, almost smiling_, if the last girl I dated went lesbian on me, I'd probably be not so into mentioning it, either. _

Fiona is focusing on the TV screen, still passing the remote between her hands.

"I was drinking all the time so I could cope," she says. Then shakes her head. "And I needed to find a better way to do it."

Against his better idea, Dallas asks, "cope with what?"

It's a minute before she answers him. "A lot. I don't know. I can't even start to explain it. I wouldn't know how. I just…I was unhappy, and I couldn't make it go away." She clears her throat. "Without drinking."

The words sink into the silver night, freezing him in place. His stomach twists, and there's a sudden flicker of panic in the pit of his stomach.

"But you're better," he says. It surprises him, how aggressive his voice sounds. "You're better now."

He narrows his eyes at her.

"Right?" he demands.

Fiona holds his gaze for a long time.

"I'm always gonna struggle with it," she whispers. "But…yeah. I'm better now."

Dallas's hands grip his knees, his knuckles turning white. He hadn't realized until now that he'd been holding his breath.

"Good," he says, dazed.

He stares off at the wall.

"Good," he repeats.

**V.**

Sleep doesn't come for him, even though he's bone-tired, exhausted like he's never been in his life. Every time he closes his eyes and thinks he'll drift off, his mind replays the entire day – being pulled into the guidance office with the rest of the team, yelling at Alli, throwing up in the bathroom until he felt like he had nothing left, the rooftop and the fleeting dance with the ledge, feeling very sane when he wondered how bad it would hurt if he hit the ground and knowing that whatever he would feel was just what he deserved. Less than what he deserved, for Cam.

Cam, Cam, Cam_, CAM_ –

Then he'd jerk back awake, heart pounding and the name vibrating in his throat, unable to breathe.

As many times as he wakes up, Fiona's still there. She stays curled up on the couch beside him, drinking tea and watching the TV silently flicker through the moonlit room, and doesn't leave. During one of those times, he wakes up with a light blanket pulled over him, and she's watching the last few minutes of_ Jumanji_ to the sound of rain falling softly on the city outside.

"Aren't you tired yet?" he asks when he blinks himself awake.

She gives him a faint smile. "Long day. Need to come down from it."

The movie fades out. Fiona fiddles with the remote, pressing the DVD controller, and the beginning of _The Avengers_ comes on the screen.

He sits up and rubs his eyes. They feel held down with the weight of the entire sky.

"Didn't take Fiona Coyne for a comic book geek," he says, as she clicks the volume up.

She smirks at him. "I'll make popcorn if you promise not to make any jokes about Thor's giant hammer."

He's smiling before he realizes it and can make it stop. Sounds like somebody watched too many movies with Drew. "Deal."

Fiona heads to the kitchen, and he pulls the smile off his face when he feels himself doing it. He looks at the clock on her mantle, startled to see it's just after midnight. He's even more shocked to realize that it's not _today_ or even _tonight_ anymore.

It's tomorrow.

The official first day without him.

How had he slept through that? Why didn't he _feel_ it; the cosmic shift that _had_ to have come with realizing that he was about to start the first full day with Cam gone?

It still didn't feel real; but at the same time, it felt so real that his body reverbed with the soul-deep ache. How could he be dead if everything still felt like it held him? If there was a him-sized hole in the air of the locker room, the sturdy weight of his shadow sitting on the bus, ear phones in and jacket swallowing him up to his neck like a turtle's shell? Could he really be gone when the force of him was as real as the smell of days-old sweat, solid as the ice under uniform skates?

Surely these things would contain more than his whispers. Maybe his reasons.

"I didn't know if you liked butter on your popcorn or not," Fiona says when she plops back down beside him. "I put some on anyway, but there's more if you don't want it."

He blinks a few times, trying to string her words together. "Huh?"

"Butter. On your popcorn." She holds out a large bowl to him. "You want some?"

"Oh." He shrugs. "Sure."

He's already seen this movie, but he still settles into the couch cushions, the popcorn bowl spread between him and Fiona. He discovers she's seen this so many times she can whisper bits of it back to the screen under her breath. And when the victory comes, she still smiles like it's the first time she's seen it, like there was ever a moment when they _wouldn't _win.

This is why people love superhero movies. They need to believe someone could win against any odds.

He looks away from the screen, gritting his teeth. His hands ball into fists at his sides. Unless winning was pointless. What good did it do?

Outside, the rain continues to fall, as the minutes of _tomorrow_ slowly become unstuck and form the first of _today_. The rain and the darkness make everything feel like it isn't quite real; like he's tripped into some strange, temporary pocket in between time. Like they're in their own little reality made of the TV's shadows and the smell of popcorn; made from the silver needles of rain and broken clarity where nothing he knows makes sense.

Cam is gone, Cam is gone, Cam is gone. Cam is gone. He's never coming back.

Fiona turns the volume down slightly. "Do you want to talk?" she says quietly.

He looks up at her. "How did you do it?"

She frowns. "Do what?"

"How did you finally get help?"

She stares at him for a moment before her face clears. "You mean rehab?"

He nods.

Fiona mutes the TV, but still keeps watching, wrapping her arms around herself.

"I didn't really do it on my own," she says. "I had Adam. My old friends. My parents." She sighs. "I kept denying I had a problem. Pretty much Alcoholism 101."

Fiona runs her fingers through her hair, pulling her legs underneath her. "I thought I was going crazy," she says. "So I drank to feel less crazy. And then I denied I felt crazy." She sighs. "Another bullet point from Alcoholism 101."

She looks back at the TV, and is quiet for so long that he wonders if she doesn't want to talk about it anymore.

"I'm not sure I would have done it otherwise," she says.

"Because people listened to you," he says. He's unable to keep the razor edge of bitterness out of his voice. "People cared about you, and knew you were in trouble."

Fiona's face crumbles when she realizes what she's walked into.

"It's harder than you think," she says. "I tried to hide how hard things were. I told my mom I was making things up just so she'd leave me alone. I lied to my family, my friends, my therapist…I was lying to everyone, just so I didn't have to say that I had a problem."

"But people _knew_," he says, his voice hard. "Adam knew. Your friends. Your parents. People around you s_aw_ you were losing it. They didn't just blow you off. They cared enough to get you help."

Fiona is shaking her head. "No. No, it's not…it's not the same thing, okay? Me and Cam, and you, it's not the same!"

"How?" he shoots back. "You're still here."

"And I'm still a drunk," she says. "Even if I never drink again, I'll still be a drunk. When I said it's something I deal with every day, I meant it. I can't even BE around alcohol because it makes me want to drink, even though I've been sober for months. I'm still dealing. I _always_ will be."

They sit in tense silent for a long moment.

"Problems don't just go away," she says finally, her voice low and level. "And with Cam, we're never gonna know what those problems were." She shakes her head. "Blame won't change that."

He shrugs one shoulder. It doesn't make it any less bitter, or any less heavy. It doesn't make it any less _true, _letting someone down so finally and colossally and shamefully.

Fiona reaches over, hesitating a moment before putting a hand on his leg.

"You should really sleep," she whispers.

He looks away. "Why? Cause things'll look better in the morning?"

She squeezes his knee.

"Because you're exhausted," she says. "And you're no good like this."

He has to snicker at that remark. He's no good like this, that, or any other way.

The credits end in a soundless flash of light and color, and the screen dissolves into black, plunging them in almost total darkness.

The rain outside continues to fall. Fiona reaches over, grabs the blanket she put around him earlier, holds it out to him.

"Sleep," she says, and doesn't leave.

**VI.**

The next time he opens his eyes, the room is filled with sunlight and shadow. A whole day crammed in every nook and inch, every corner, every place hidden and in plain view.

He knows it has to be pretty early, because the morning outside is ragged with the last bits of night still clinging to its end. He heads to the bathroom, considers taking a shower. But that would mean washing away the last bits of yesterday. Rinsing him clean.

He doesn't feel like it's right to do that.

And really, he still can't believe that now is tomorrow. That today is yesterday, and the endless crawl of minutes without Cam in them are really going to be just that – endless.

Instead, he quietly opens the door to Fiona's fire escape and slides out, sitting on a porch cold and slippery with dew. It's chilly out, but he can see bits of the dawn clawing their way over the cityscape. Fingers scrabbling for a hold in this new, tentative world; wanting to explore it, to shine their light on everything that could happen, good, bad, and otherwise.

He peers over the edge of the fire escape, measuring the distance to the alley below with his eyes. It seems like so long ago that he stood on the roof. That he considered taking a one-way ticket to the concrete. It seemed so logical, so perfect. Less than what he deserved, but the fastest way to make what he DID deserve happen.

He rubs his eyes, a sigh rippling through him that makes his bones shift. He doesn't want to jump anymore. Doesn't think it's right. Not because he deserves to live, or even that he doesn't deserve to die. There's a lot of things Dallas knows he deserves, and none of them are particularly good or flattering.

But he doesn't want to jump anymore, just because he thinks he shouldn't.

He remembers the movie they watched, what he thought about superheroes. He was wrong, then. They didn't fight to win something. They fought to _fight,_ because they needed to. If they didn't fight for people, who would? Someone had to.

Light starts to peel across the city, misting the morning in hazy gold smoke. He can't stop the heaviness washing over him, the disgust he feels with himself. For his fight with Cam, for ignoring his sadness. For blaming Alli when he really wanted to blame himself, needed someone to blame him, to crucify him or burn him alive; do _something_ to show everyone how badly he needed to be punished. For letting Cam down. For even considering a jump; for wanting to give up and make it stop because he was weak, he was pathetic, he hated himself and couldn't live with the horror.

But he needed to feel this. Needed to live with this hurt, this sting of blame. Needed to be sorry for the rest of his life for what he did to Cam, how horribly he failed him.

Traffic is starting to pick up on the highway, and beyond that he can see the water. Sunlight ripples off the surface, a glittering wash of silver poured straight into the earth. The rooftop comes back. He feels heavy, so heavy, but so detached at the same time. Like he could float away, even though he feels too weighted down to move.

He can't do anything to make it better, he knows. Any of it. Alli was wrong – it would never be okay. But Fiona didn't save him for nothing. He remembers what she said, about needing him to help.

He snorts. He still doesn't really believe it, that he could help anyone. He's hurt too many people for that, and for what. For himself. Doesn't think there's any way he can say he's sorry – definitely not to Cam, and he'll know that forever.

Still. Fiona was right, to save him. And he was right to not die. Staying alive was more than his punishment for all the ways he let Cam down; it was the only way he made any kind of apology for what he did. The only way he could make up for it, or at least attempt to.

Dallas sighs. He can't make up for it, corrects himself. Nothing will.

But still.

_Stay alive._

It's all he can do.

And if he ever manages to do anything good – to fight, to help, or at the very least not cause more hurt – with whatever life he has left, it's as close to an "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please forgive me, I'm so sorry and I always will be, forever, please, I'm sorry" that he'll ever get.

A light breeze comes over him, like a warm, soft hand on his cheek. He closes his eyes, smelling the honeysuckle silence of the early morning, tasting the sweet heaviness of the air. He can't still believe it's tomorrow, and a part of him still can't believe Cam's dead, or that yesterday even happened at all.

He pushes himself up, feeling his stiff muscles creak in protest. At this hour, even the dingy fast food places and gas stations look fresh and new. He thinks of how unfair it is that he's here, on this side of yesterday, seeing things like this when he shouldn't. He forces himself to imagine Cam, the weight he must have carried, the sadness that Dallas didn't see, or probably just didn't want to.

Was he scared? Did he want to stop doing it, at any point? Did he ever wish he could take it back, that someone would find him, that he could have one more chance to feel good again? Or did he not think he ever could, at that point? Did he even care?

He pulls his phone out of his pocket, scrolls through his contacts. Presses the button, listens to it ring on the other side, somewhere far away across the glowing water.

"Hello, Dallas residents, who is this?"

A scratchy little voice, husky with early morning, and sounding like someone talking with a mouth full of rehearsed words and, probably, sugared cereal.

Dallas smiles. "Hey, Gabe."

"Who is this?" the voice trills suspiciously.

Dallas rolls his eyes. "It's Mike, bonehead."

"Mike!" The shriek makes Dallas move the phone a few inches away from his ear. He forgot how shrill seven-year-olds could be. "Do I need to get Mommy?"

"In a minute. How are you, buddy?"

"Good! I have school though. I have a project on Mars. It's the red planet. And I have a spelling test."

There's a lump in his throat he swallows down. "That sounds hard."

"It's okay. I know how to spell all the words. I got moved to the highest spelling group. That means we spell all the big words. I know how to spell 'dinosaur' now, you wanna hear it?"

"In a minute," he says, feeling something tug inside him. "Can you…can you put Mom on the phone, bud?"

"Okay. But I know how to spell 'dinosaur'. D-I-N-O-S-U-R."

Against his will, Dallas has to laugh. "You got it."

"I know," Gabe says. Then Dallas hears, more quietly, "Mommy, Mike's here."

There's a frantic whisper from the other end, and then Gabe's voice is replaced by another, one that makes his head swim and his eyes mist and his chest squeeze with warmth, with _need_.

"Michael?" she says, and he instantly feels horrible for not calling her yesterday. She sounds like she got about as much sleep as he did.

He closes his eyes, feeling his throat close over, and for a moment, he presses the phone to his forehead, trying to make his voice even.

"Hey Moms," he whispers; it cracks only a little bit.

**VII.**

By the time he's hung up on his mother, Fiona's sitting in her kitchen, the morning light sweeping elegantly across the hardwood floor. The coffee pot dings from the counter, and she gets up to pour herself a mug.

"Morning," she says. "You want one?"

Instead of answering, he asks, "Did you ever give Marisol an answer from last night?"

Fiona blinks, trying to remember. "About Spirit Week?"

Dallas nods.

"No." She pours him a steaming cup, then stirs some sugar from a little blue bowl into her own. "Why?"

Dallas reaches over and grabs his own cup, closing his fingers around the warm ceramic. He can smell the bitter warmth of the roast already waking him up, building and sharpening the edges of this clear, new day around him.

"I think I have an idea," he tells her.


End file.
